Amazon Touts 'Download Day' in the UK

Promo with tablet tie-in timed to summer’s busiest travel day

Amazon has launched a promotional effort in the UK around what the company is calling “Download Day”—its anticipated busiest day of the year for video content downloads by users in that country.

Citing government travel statistics and its own past usage trends, Amazon said it expected its UK customers to download the most TV shows and other videos from Prime Video on July 28. It also expects that day will be the busiest for digital downloads of music, apps, games and books from Prime Music and its Kindle Store, as consumers load up on content for their summer travels.

To stir up Download Day business, Amazon is offering UK consumers £5 (about $6.75) off its new Fire 7 tablet.

Amazon’s push seeks to take advantage of widespread digital content consumption in the UK. Nearly six in 10 UK internet users downloaded or streamed digital video on a weekly basis in Q1 2017, according to a study by audience targeting service AudienceProject.

In addition, Ipsos MORI data from February 2017 found that 36% of Great Britain’s population had downloaded or streamed TV programming sometime in the preceding three months. The research also showed that 32% had downloaded or streamed music and 27% had accessed movies digitally.

“We know how much our customers value being able to download our TV shows and movies to watch on the move, especially at this time of year when travel for families across the UK is at its highest,” Jay Marine, vice president of Amazon Video Europe, said in a statement.

NATS, the UK’s air traffic control service, recently said that it expects to handle a new high of 8,800 flights on July 28, and more than 770,000 overall this summer, beating last year’s figure by 40,000.